


Electric Sheep

by tyroneslothrop



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Animal Death, Boxing, Brief mentions of bestality, Kinda, M/M, More shitty allegorical nonsense, Sci-Fi, Science Fiction, Violence, boxer!harry, brief mentions of sex, normal!louis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-04
Updated: 2015-06-04
Packaged: 2018-04-02 20:58:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4073650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tyroneslothrop/pseuds/tyroneslothrop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry is a boxer. Louis is his doted, normal boyfriend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Electric Sheep

Harry's arms were slung around the rope, his veins dancing around them, trying to break free and join them. Sweat dripped and swam around his body, falling on his heaving chest. The crowd pulsed and thrummed in a wave, and Harry felt their heat radiate onto him, making him feel more awake, energized. His sweaty curls hung around his neck like a noose.

In the haze of tangerines and strawberry reds, he could see from the corner of his eye Louis. Perched on a plastic seat, nibbling at his nails and whispering to the referee. He always got worried before matches. One of the cons of dating a sportsman, he supposes. The other boxer is staring at him with an strange glint, his eye veins bursting and oscillating around his iris. It served as a stark contrast to his skin, which resembled old worn out leather. Harry smirked at him, and he responded with an evil grin of his own.

The bell sounded through the arena.

Harry swung and ducked textbook style. 20 minutes later he almost had the match, till a blue glove slung through the air and landed right on his nose. He felt fragments of his bones fly back into his face and seen red, slamming into his opponents temple. KO.

The bell rang again.

“And the winner is... Harry Styles!” the commentator boomed, and he felt his arm lifted. He glanced to Louis, and he seen tears prickling his eyes, but he smiled and gave him a tentative thumbs up. Harry beamed.

Getting the £5,000 check was good, but riding in the ambulance with Louis holding his hand was better. Tears were spilling down his face and Harry smiled at him, trying to comfort him.

“I'll live babe,” Harry whispers through a grin, “I'll live.”

“I know.” Louis said, and burst into fresh floods of tears.

-

The bed slices through the corridors and Louis tries to keep up, and manages by a hair. They end up with a kind looking man in a business suit, the white clothing the same shade of his wrinkled skin. Louis shudders.

“Well, you busted up your nose pretty bad,” the doctor wiggles his fingers, “but we'll be able to fix it up. You'll need to stay for around a week here, you'll go through surgery on Sunday. Sound good?”

Harry thanked him, and Louis dug his fingernails into his palm. “Oh yeah, by the way, can I get an autograph?”

Louis doesn't leave his bedside for the whole week, and brings him books and crosswords. He doesn't think he's said thank you in his life anymore than he has this past week. The surgery goes well, and he gets a pretty neat looking bandage on his nose. Louis cries again when he sees him.

“When we get home, you know what we're gonna buy with that 5,000 pound check? A puppy! No, listen Louis, a puppy!” Louis' got his head in a book, but he looks up to smile at his boyfriend, crows feet dancing around his eyes.

“I'd love that,” Louis says, “where would we keep their bed?”

“Next to ours! It'll be like a threesome!”

Louis laughs.

They go to the pound when Harry gets discharged, and they pick up an adorable black haired greyhound. They name her Venus, and end up blowing one fifth of their check on toys and food for the pup. They don't get one step in the house before Venus is pawing at the couches and jumping everywhere. Harry and Louis hold hands and grin, he can't wait for when it's their own children instead. Venus sleeps in their room as promised, but beneath their feet on the bed instead. They can't make love as much anymore, but Louis doesn't mind. He prefers cuddling anyway. Pictures of them walking their pup make newspapers, and Harry feels so happy he could die.

“Look baby! You're famous!” Harry points Venus to the pile of newspapers on the floor with him on the cover. Venus proceeds to shit on them.

When Harry's allowed back in the ring, he notices the arena is pretty empty. The filled seats look dead. Frowning faces surround him. Was he gone for that long? A business suit sulks in the corner of his eye, but he sees Louis smile at him and he feels alright again. The bell rings, and his opponent swings.

Harry ends up winning, and when his arm lifts to the air, the cheer the crowd gives sound like the hiss of a dying cat. He turns to Louis, and he smiles, but he looks like he's had things thrown at him. It's Harry's turn to frown.

-

“So...” the grimy little suit began.

“So...” Harry repeated, his drawl sounding more limp and lifeless the longer he spent in this meeting.

“People are starting to suspect you and Louis are dating.” the suit let the silence fill the air, chewing on his ink pen.

“Smart people,” Harry scoffed and resumed to observing the patterned carpet. “What's the problem?”

“Harry,” the suit grinned loomed towards him with a look that seemed to be sweet, but meant 'we will ruin you'. “Ticket sales for your matches have decreased 23% since these rumours began. Do you know what that means? Hm?”. He began to leer and seethe at Harry, and he swore he seen a snake tongue poke through his thin cracked lips.

“It means less money for us! So to stop you from ruining the business, we're going to set you up with 3 girls and plant some... stories. All you have to do is look nice and hang around with them, and we'll make the club give you free drinks. Sound good?”

Harry rose and stared the walking briefcase in his eyes. They resembled coin slots on a fruit machine. Picking up his chair, he walked to the window and slammed the legs against the corners of the pane.

-

The evening reek of alcohol licked around him, and he wished it would swallow him whole. He paraded around the club entrance with the throng of girls, appearing as static as possible. But if Harry knew the media, which he did unfortunately, it'd just make him look like more of a player. He wondered what Louis was making for dinner tomorrow. He hoped he wasn't taking it too bad.

One of the girls propositions him for a shag, and Harry takes pleasure in looking at the stars.

Next week the arena is packed, the entire crowd was jumping, looking like a Mexican wave. Harry resented every single fucking one of them. Swiveling his head, he looked out for feather brown hair and a pair of sapphire eyes. Nowhere. The bell rang. His opponent swung. Harry lost.

When he goes home that night, he finds a bleary eyed Louis in the kitchen, staring into a pot of pasta. Harry comes behind him and wraps him up in his arms, and Louis spouts fresh tears again. He whispers sweet nothings and apologies into his ear. The pasta overcooks beneath them, tickling their skin with the bubbles. Threatening to boil over.

A few days later Louis wakes him up by telling him he has to go to America to visit his distant relatives. He'll be gone for a week. Harry kisses him without emotion, and lets him leave.

Harry forgets how to cook and his muscles sag beneath his flesh. He barely manages to oil and recharge himself and whenever he does, Venus whimpers around him. He forgets how to feed the dog too. He wakes up one night after a restless sleep to find Venus' body frozen and unblinking. He buries the thing in the back yard with a face like concrete and thinks over a lie to tell Louis.

“He ran off, I can't find him,” Harry lies through his teeth when Louis comes back, and he looks grief stricken. He runs off with a bag of Venus' favourite treats, screaming his name. Harry feels a quick pang of sadness, but it runs off as quick as it came and Harry wonders if it even happened at all.

Louis gives up after a month and resorts to sulking on the couch all day. Harry tries to coax him out of it, to no avail.

“We could always buy another doggy, get one exactly like Venus...” Harry trailed off.

“Fuck off, are you even human? I want Venus, not a replacement.” and Louis cries again, but he welcomes Harry's arms this time.

Since the dog doesn't take up the bed anymore, they have more time for sex. When they do make love, Louis feels like he's fucking a machine, and not in a good way. He kisses him when he pulls out, before slipping out into the black night, invisible. Louis sleeps alone.

Harry begins to work out more, and the fans start giving him the nickname of 'The Fighting Machine'. He's became mechanical in the ring. Swing swing duck swing duck duck swing KO win. Louis doesn't come to matches, despite his management allowing him to sit ringside again. Harry finds he doesn't care.

Louis begins to sleep on the couch. The first night he did, Harry was restless, waking up bleary eyed and barely filled up. The second night was bad too, but by a week, Harry was fine, letting his limbs stick out over the bed. Tension began to saturate their house, and Harry waited for Louis to slap him and storm out. It never came, but the threat hung over them like a thunder cloud.

Harry riverran, past Eve and Adam. They were eating the apples and fucking the animals. Adam's dick slithered and slunk around, coiling around the horses throat before plunging into its tight silken heat. A way a lone a last a loved a long the shadow of Louis loomed over him and wrapped him in a curtain of smoky black, suffocating him. From swerve of shore to bend of breakfast, breakfast, someone is making breakfast. The rotten stench of bacon and sausages swims into Harry's nostrils. They flare. He gets up to leave. He sits in his car, starting it up, feeling himself become one with it, and drives to his managements building.

 

8:34 AM

Harry did a flawless pirouette, triple somersault and back flip out of the office's third floor window. The broken glass landing straight into his heart on impact and killing him. Brown leaked around him, and paramedics couldn't identify the substance.

Louis received the news with a grave face, tossing the phone outside his balcony. The crash of it soothed him almost. He glanced at the rising sun on the horizon and felt cleansed. A new day was dawning. He found he didn't care about Harry's death all that much.

Because Harry was a robot.

And a robot was all this story was about.


End file.
